When designing any kind of system, whether it be an ESXi lab or otherwise, disk performance can end up being a bottleneck. No matter how fast your processor, or how much RAM you have, if you have a ton of iowait, and your system is having to wait in line to write or read data from your drive or volume, then your system will be slow. Modern systems in need of extreme IOPS are turning to SSD arrays and SSD cards for performance, but even with the drastic reduction in price since their … [Read more...]

Every good lab needs an easy to setup, quality, reliable form of iSCSI to use for storage, even if it's not for anything but testing. Working with ESXi in any type of production environment, you won't be using local storage, but rather iSCSI datstores. There are a plethora of methods to getting good iSCSI targets, but I've found the best solution for a Windows OS is StarWind iSCSI SAN Free Edition. It's a software that I promote, enjoy using, and respect the team over at Starwind for making a … [Read more...]

Don Fountain

The HomeServerBlog.com is information about using real datacenter technologies in your home, configured in an easy to maintain, efficient, and most of all, cost effective manner. We focus on helping you with a lab that is multiuse, allowing for experimentation with virtualization and other technologies, home storage, home backup, and more.
Note that my posts are my opinion, and not any official view or stance of my employer. About Me